


thirty lives

by Lunas



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, This is jus t angst i don't know why i wrote such ANGST but cest la vie i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:15:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunas/pseuds/Lunas
Summary: ‘I was wondering when we’d meet again,’ Watson says softly. Of all the things, he thinks about the fact that she’s cut her hair.A conversation





	thirty lives

‘Finally.’

She perches like a bird on the windowsill, facing him. The dusty frame of it surrounds her and she is a photograph, a painting. 

‘I was wondering when we’d meet again,’ Watson says softly. Of all the things, he thinks about the fact that she’s cut her hair. 

He finds his voice, although it comes out hoarse; ‘Watson.’ He says, and it is all he can say.

‘Holmes,’ her smile is the same, her eyes two pools of sweet molasses. But only for a second, then her face fades back into a sad look, old and tired.

Her gaze turns upwards, to the birds circling the bright sky. His stays where it is.

‘Have you called them?’ she asks.

‘Not yet,’ he answers.

Her eyes find his. ‘That was stupid of you.’

There is no threat in her, she is merely stating facts.

‘Why? Are you going to run away? Kill me?’ He means it to come out derisive, but the words are toneless; dead.

‘Why the hell would I kill you?’ she says evenly.

‘To get away.’

‘You know that’s not my style, Sherlock.’

‘Killing?’ He snaps, finally finding his anger, ‘that’s exactly your style!’

And so does she, it seems, from the way her fists clench and her body leans forward. 

‘I only kill those who deserve it. Don’t try and shove your broken moral compass in my face, Sherlock, I know you. I know you and we both know you should be standing right next to me.’

‘Then you never really knew me,’ he says weakly, but a part of him withers and his breath scratches his throat.

Watson hops down from the windowsill. He thinks numbly that she should be more careful, lest she get splinters. She doesn’t walk towards him, but stands and watches. 

‘Maybe I did,’ she says, and there is no more fire in her words, ‘it took you long enough to catch me, after all.’

‘I’ve caught you now, haven’t I?’

She tilts her head, ‘I was constantly surprised, over the years, at the things you failed to detect. I made errors that I thought for sure you’d see. But. You didn’t.’

‘You underestimate yourself, Watson. I’m good, but you’re better.’

A hint of emotion passes over her face so suddenly that he cannot really be sure if it was there. She swallows. 

‘Modesty never suited you,’ she accuses, ‘your detective skills are unparalleled.’

The only thing Sherlock had done while she was gone, it seems like, was try to figure out how to find her. He’d spent years of his life locked away from the world, obsessed with bringing her to justice.

But he knows he had never wanted to catch her, not really. The selfish part of him cared more for her than for her victims, and had half consciously sabotaged his investigations.

He nods. His head hangs in accepted defeat.

‘It’s ok,’ and he registers that she’s taken a few steps forward so that she is almost at arm’s length, ‘I wanted to be found almost as much as you didn’t want to find me.’

He glances up.

‘Almost,’ and she smiles.

‘I hate you,’ Sherlock lies, the words coming unbidden from his lips. The air around him swallows them up. He regrets them immediately, but is too cowardly to take them back.

Watson- small, unshakable Watson, a different person now and yet the same as when she faced the world at his side, breaks. Her lips pull down and her eyebrows furrow. Her hand comes up to his face, trembling and cold.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

Her hand eventually falls, leaving them staring at each other with no words left to fill the air. The space between them is a sliver of tension, a no man’s land, a chasm.

**Author's Note:**

> Honest to god this is the shortest I've ever worked on a fic so like it might be like absolute trash but I cannot look at it objectively, There Fore, here u go. (also let the record state I am 100% behind joan on this endeavour she's taken tbH but this is from sherlock's Pov so.)


End file.
